


Change

by HorseCrazyWriter76



Series: NaNoWriMo November 2019 [13]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Coming Out, Fluff, Gen, Trans!Virgil, not beta read or edited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:07:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21538753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HorseCrazyWriter76/pseuds/HorseCrazyWriter76
Summary: Who am I to tell me who I am?Prompt from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc9eEphSxqc
Series: NaNoWriMo November 2019 [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1541089
Comments: 2
Kudos: 64





	Change

Aviva hated her name. At first she said it was because it was she had looked it up and it was of Hebrew origin, and she felt weird having a name from a culture she didn’t even know anyone from. Then a boy named Patton approached her, and he said he loved her name because of its meaning: spring, youthful, or innocent. Patton was Jewish and wormed his way into being called Aviva’s friend, so that excuse fell apart.

Then Aviva said it was because she was born in winter, and having name meaning spring felt weird. Then she got paired with Logan on a group project, and he pointed out that winter made way for the new growth of spring and that the seasons were twined together. They continually worked together because they found that they both actually worked and eventually found themselves meeting up outside of class even when they weren’t working together. The excuse melted away.

Then Aviva said she hated it because it meant youthful and innocent, which, as she had now started her descent into her emo “phase”, were not descriptors she wanted to associate with. Then she teched a show and one of the actors, Roman, started calling her Midnight, and she hated that name equally as much as the first. Roman became friends with Patton and was thusly weaved into the friend group, as Aviva’s excuse melted away.

Roman paced to and fro in front of Aviva. She barely looked up to watch Roman’s progress.

“Who put a burr under your saddle?”

“It’s just that I have so many ideas for group Halloween costumes, but Logan refuseses to go. Patton agreed, but I can’t think of a good two person costume! All I can think of is trios.”

“What about Remus?” Aviva asked, already knowing the answer as Roman spun on one foot to face her. Aviva got ready for a scream.

“No,” Roman replied, the scream never coming, “I supposed I shall never be able to act on the ideas.”

“You want me to dress up and parade around with you two, don’t you?”

“Please?”

“What do you have in mind?” Aviva sighed, already knowing she wouldn’t be able to refuse. 

“Taran, Eilonwy, and Gorgi?”

“From The Black Cauldron?”

“Where else?”

“Only if I’m Taran.”

“But you’d be perfect for Eilonwy!”

“You are never getting me in a dress.”

“Come on, Vee.”

“Vee, that’s an uncharacteristically un-extra nickname. The answer is still no.”

“Not every nickname has to be extra, the darkest cauldron. It’s hard calling people nicknames without reusing any.”

“You called me Midnight for a while back there. I’ve heard Emo Nightmare a couple times, too.”

“Fine, but please?”

“You be Eilonwy.”

“You know what? Alright.”

That was the big story behind how Aviva got a binder. She wiggled it over her head, taking a moment to look at herself in the mirror as she got used to the tight feeling. She loved the person who looked back at her. Well, she didn’t quite love her. She looked fat, but the binder made her look so much better. She hurried to throw on the rest of her costume before Roman could come knocking.

Aviva ordered a couple more binders and started wearing them. She found she liked the feeling more than she thought was normal. She looked at herself in the mirror one day.

“They looked at themself in the mirror,” she whispered, “Xe looked at hirself. Xe looked at ximself. E looked at emself,” she shook her head: none of them sounded right, “He looked at himself? He looked at himself in the mirror.”

Aviva slowly nodded at herself, himself. He sounded right.  _ He looked at himself in the mirror. _ He sounded like a broken record in his head, now. Besides, he was a girl, right? Had always been a girl and always would be. He repeated the fact, but it felt as if every repetition brought it closer to snapping.

“Am I a boy?” he asked his empty room, which, of course, didn’t answer. Finally Aviva decided he’d stared the person in the mirror down and questioned his gender enough for one moring. He finished his brief makeup routine and hurried downstairs for school. 

“Hey, Kiddo!” Patton waved Aviva over. He ran the last couple steps over to where Logan and Patton were sitting. Roman would undoubtedly arrive soon.

“Good morning, Aviva.”

“‘Sup, Logan, Patton.”

“Do you want to know something really cute that Chip did today?”

“What did he do?” Aviva asked, sitting down in front of them.

“Okay, so I was taking him on his morning walk when a cat walked by-”

“Did you take your allergy medicine?” Aviva broke in, carefully studying Patton’s face. He didn’t  _ look  _ like he’d had an allergic reaction.

“Yes, and I barely resisted the urge to pet it! Anyways, I tightened my hold on Chip’s leash because we’ve never seen a cat while out walking, but instead of wanting to chase it, he walked up to it, the cat stayed where it was, and they touched noses! Then Chip’s tail started to wag so hard his entire body was shaking and the cat ran off, but it was so cute!”

“Hello, wonderful citizens, and you nerds!”

“Heya, Roman!”

“Salutations, Roman.”

“Hey, Princey, although one question: there’s four of us here, so who’s the other wonderful citizen?”

“I think you misinterpreted my statement.  _ Patton  _ is a wonderful citizen, you and Logan are the nerds.”

“I don’t even wear glasses!”

“Name every element of the periodic table.”

“Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, neon, sodium, magnesium, aluminum-alright, I get your point, but you’ll have to memorize it soon, too.”

“I sincerely hope not.”

“The curriculum is coming for you. You cannot stop it.”

“Technically you could, but you would have to drop out or be homeschooled,” Logan pointed out.

“Homeschool, here I come!”

“So you’re going to leave drama behind? Never be in a school play again?” Aviva asked.

“Homeschool, nevermind!”

They laughed together, then Patton recounted the story of Chip and the cat. The bell was about to ring when Aviva decided to ask them.

“Hey, guys, I was wondering if...ifmaybeyoucouldusehe/himpronounsforme?” It came out in one garbled rush, and Aviva could feel fires starting on his cheeks. There was a pause. Each of their faces twisted in varying degrees of confusion, as they undoubtedly tried to figure out what he’d said. Logan made his I-got-it-now face before either of the other two.

“Certainly, is there anyone you would like us to not use he/him pronouns to refer to you in front of?” Logan asked.

“Um, maybe just us four for now?”

“I would be happy to oblige.”

“Of course, Kiddo!”

“Consider it done, Panic! At the everywhere.”

The bell rang and they hurried off to their classes. Aviva took a deep breath. He could do this. 

It would take awhile for Aviva to finally look at his name again, and ask himself why he hated it. He would realize the true answer then: it was feminine. The only problem beyond realization was that he would have no idea what to call himself. A mountain of google searches would bring him no closer to finding one that felt like him than before. It wouldn’t be until he was forced to read through Dante’s Inferno for his English class that he would find his name: Virgil. It would be even longer before he admitted to himself that it was a name he wanted, although not without a half-formed argument about being able to tell himself what he was that he tossed into an imaginary trash can in his brain.


End file.
